New NIE on Iran nuke program appears to differ little from 2007 findingshttp://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2011/02/new-nie-on-iran-nuke-program-appears-to-differ-little-from-2007-findings.html
The U.S. intelligence community has completed a new National Intelligence Estimate for President Barack Obama and Congress on Iran's nuclear program. The key judgements, however, aren't being released like those of a November 2007 NIE that concluded that Iran had...<p>The U.S. intelligence community has completed a new National Intelligence Estimate for President Barack Obama and Congress on Iran&#39;s nuclear program. The key judgements, however, aren&#39;t being released like those of a <a href="http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf">November 2007 NIE</a> that concluded that Iran had halted the development of a nuclear weapon four years earlier.</p>
<p>But that may not matter. Because logic and U.S. intelligence community practices tell us that Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper essentially laid out the new NIE&#39;s key judgments in the <a href="http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20110210_testimony_hpsci_clapper.pdf">Annual Worldwide Threat Assessment</a> that he presented today to the Senate Intelligence Committee and on Feb. 10 to the House Intelligence Committee. And in effect, the conclusions of the new NIE are pretty close to those of the 2007 NIE.</p>
<p>&quot;We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it chose to do so,&quot; Clapper says in the threat assessment. &quot;We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.&quot;</p>
<p>Translation: The 16 U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Iran&#39;s covert nuclear weapons work remains suspended for now, but could be restarted if the Iranian regime decides to do so. And if it does proceed, the United States may not know it.</p>
<p>Here&#39;s what the 2007 NIE said: U.S. intelligence analysts &quot;assess with moderate-to-high confidence<br />that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.&quot;</p>
<p>And this: &quot;In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decision is inherently reversible.&quot;</p>
<p>That doesn&#39;t mean that Iran hasn&#39;t been aggressively pursuing the technologies that it would need to build weapons. That is especially so when it comes to centrifuges, the supersonic spinning machines that are used to produce both low-enriched urnanium for power reactors - which is what Tehran insists it&#39;s using them for - and highly enriched uranium for bombs. The effort centered at <a href="http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/natanz03_02.html">Natanz </a>has been considerably slowed, however, by attacks by the computer virus known as <a href="http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/stuxnet-malware-and-natanz-update-of-isis-december-22-2010-reportsupa-href1/">Stuxnet</a>, experts say.</p>
<p>&quot;Iran&#39;s technical advancement, particularly in uranium enrichment, strengthens our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue the will to do so,&quot; Clapper says in the threat assessment. &quot;These advancements contribute to our judgment that Iran is technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon in the next few years, if it choses to do so.&quot;</p>
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<p>&#0160;</p>Jonathan Landay2011-02-16T12:38:14-05:00U.S. civilian intelligence program budget request made public for first timehttp://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2011/02/us-civilian-intelligence-program-budget-request-made-public-for-first-time.html
$55 billion. That's how much the Obama administration wants from Congress in FY 2012 for the National Intelligence Program, which funds civilian U.S. intelligence agencies and activities. It is the first time that any administration has ever made that request...<p>$55 billion.</p>
<p>That&#39;s how much the Obama administration wants from Congress in FY 2012 for the National Intelligence Program, which funds civilian U.S. intelligence agencies and activities. It is the first time that any administration has ever made that request public.</p>
<p>&quot;Any and all subsidiary information concerning the National Intelligence Program (NIP) budget, whether the information concerns particular intelligence agencies or particular intelligence programs, will not be disclosed,&quot; said <a href="http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20110214_release_budget.pdf">a news release</a> issued on Monday by the <a href="http://www.dni.gov/">Office of the Director of National Intelligence</a>.</p>
<p>The administration was required to make the FY 2012 NIP budget request public under a 2010 law, although President Barak Obama had the option of using a waiver to keep the figure secret.</p>
<p>Steven Aftergood, who runs the <a href="http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/govsec/index.html">Project on Government Secrecy</a> over at the <a href="http://www.fas.org/">Federation of American Scientists</a>, hailed the disclosure as &quot;a new milestone in the &#39;normalization&#39; of intelligence budgeting.&quot;</p>
<p>&quot;It sets the stage for a direct appropriation of intelligence funds, to replace the deliberately misleading practice of concealing intelligence funds within the defense budget.&#0160; Doing so would also enable the Pentagon to (accurately) report a smaller total budget figure, a congenial prospect in tight budget times,&quot; Aftergood said in Tuesday&#39;s issue of his blog <a href="http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/">Secrecy News</a>.</p>
<p>As Aftergood noted, the disclosure follows years of contentious debate and litigation, including an unsuccessful 1999 court suit brought by FAS. In a sworn declaration to the court, then Director of National Intelligence George Tenet insisted that revealing the intelligence community&#39;s budget request would undermine U.S. national security by providing &quot;foreign intelligence services with a valuable benchmark for identifying and frustrating United States&#39; intelligence programs.&quot;</p>
<p>&quot;From our perspective, Mr. Tenet was wrong in 1999, and the damage he foresaw would not have resulted from the disclosure that he prevented,&quot; wrote Aftergood. &quot;More fundamentally, the changing official assessment of the need to classify this information reflects the subjectivity that is inherent in the classification process, which makes it possible for two intelligence community leaders to reach opposing conclusions.&quot;</p>
<p>The administration&#39;s request for the Military Intelligence Program remains classified.</p>
<p>&#0160;</p>Jonathan Landay2011-02-15T14:24:04-05:00Central Asia on the brink?http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2011/02/central-asia-on-the-brink.html
Twenty years after emerging from the wreckage of the former Soviet Union, the five countries of Central Asia are grappling with an accelerating collapse of their physical and human infrastructure, threatening dire consequences for their near-term stability, warns a new...<p>Twenty years after emerging from the wreckage of the former Soviet Union, the five countries of Central Asia are grappling with an accelerating collapse of their physical and human infrastructure, threatening dire consequences for their near-term stability, warns a new <a href="http://www.crisisgroup.org/en.aspx">International Crisis Group</a> <a href="http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/central-asia/201-central-asia-decay-and-decline.aspx">report</a>.</p>
<p>&quot;Quietly but steadily, Central Asia&#39;s basic human and physical infrastructure - the roads, power plants, hospitals and schools and the last generation of Soviet-trained specialists who have all this running - is disappearing,&quot; says the report entitled &quot;Central Asia: Decay and Decline. &quot;Post-independence regimes made little effort to maintain or replace either, and funds allocated for this purpose have largely been eaten up by corruption.&quot;</p>
<p>The crisis, the report finds, is most accute in the two poorest countries, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, where local experts say that in the next few years there will be no more teachers or doctors. &quot;Experts in both countries are haunted by the increasingly likely prospect of catastrophic systemic collapse, especially in the energy sector,&quot; it says.</p>
<p>Things aren&#39;t that much better in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and even Kazakstan, the best-off of the former Soviet Central Asian republics, is being &quot;tested by infrastructure deficiencies, particularly in transportation and training of technical cadre,&quot; the report warns.</p>
<p>The bottomline: unless steps are taken by the regimes and their international donors to halt the deterioration, poverty and anti-government anger will deepen, fueling instability and providing Islamic radical groups with &quot;further ammunition against regional leaders.&quot;</p>
<p>Central Asia&#39;s leaders, especially the aging despots, might want to read the report in light of events in Tunisia and Egypt. It&#39;s doubtful, however, that they will.</p>Jonathan Landay2011-02-03T11:15:32-05:00Human Rights Watch: Iraqi units under Maliki running secret detention sitehttp://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2011/02/human-rights-watch-iraqi-units-under-maliki-running-secret-detention-site.html
Elite security forces that answer directly to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office are running a secret detention center in Baghdad and have tortured prisoners "with impunity" at a different location in the Iraqi capital, an international human rights group...<p>Elite security forces that answer directly to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki&#39;s office are running a secret detention center in Baghdad and have tortured prisoners &quot;with impunity&quot; at a different location in the Iraqi capital, an international human rights group says.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.hrw.org/">Human Rights Watch</a> says <a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/01/iraq-secret-jail-uncovered-baghdad">the allegations</a> against the 56th Brigade of the Iraqi Army and the country&#39;s Counter-Terrorism Service are based on interviews with former detainees and classified Iraqi government documents that it obtained.</p>
<p>The secret detention facility is located within a legitimate Justice Ministry detention center in Camp Justice, a former notorious intelligence compound during the rule of Saddam Hussein. More than 280 prisoners were transferred into the site in November from a detention center in the Green Zone that had come under public scrutiny following a <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/19/world/la-fg-iraq-prison19-2010apr19">Los Angles Times story </a> last year on abuses and miserable conditions there, Human Rights Watch said.</p>
<p>The transfers took place just days before an international inspection team was to investigate conditions in Camp Honor, the Green Zone detention center, it said.</p>
<p>About 80 of the detainees in the Camp Justice site are in 56th Brigade&#39;s custody, while the remainder are being held by the counter-terrorism unit. The detainees have no access to lawyers or family members and prison inspectors are barred from the section of the facility controlled by the 56th Brigade, it said.</p>
<p>Human Rights Watch said that it had obtained 18 documents underpinning its allegations, including one from a prosecutor asking Maliki&#39;s office to authorize access to the detainees by lawyers and relatives. Another concerns a refusal by a 56th Brigade officer to allow Human Rights Ministry inspectors inside.</p>
<p>More than one dozen former detainees told Human Rights Watch in interviews that they were subjected to inhuman conditions and a wide range of abuses during interrogations at Camp Honor, including beatings and electric shocks.</p>
<p>Iraqi officials have previously denied such allegations and Maliki has previously promised to reign in abuses.</p>
<p>Human Rights Watch called on the Maliki government to close all of the facilities.</p>
<p>&#0160;</p>Jonathan Landay2011-02-01T12:47:34-05:00Senate committee report sees security risks facing U.S. diplomats in Iraqhttp://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2011/02/senate-committee-report-sees-security-risks-facing-us-diplomats-in-iraq.html
A new report by the Democratic majority staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee raises serious concerns about the security of hundreds of U.S. diplomats who will remain in Iraq to support the government after the departure of the last...<p>A <a href="http://www.foreign.senate.gov/">new report</a> by the Democratic majority staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee raises serious concerns about the security of hundreds of U.S. diplomats who will remain in Iraq to support the government after the departure of the last 50,000 American troops at year&#39;s end.</p>
<p>While Iraq has undergone a &quot;remarkable transformation&quot; since the height of the civil war in 2007, with a more than 90 percent reduction in violence and an elected government now seated, &quot;these advances remain fragile, uneven and reversible,&quot; said the report released at a committee hearing on the issue on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Al Qaida&#39;s Iraqi affiliate remains a threat, serious sectarian tensions persist and the country has yet to resolve potentially incendiary issues like a new oil law and the status of the city of Kirkuk, it said. All that poses significant security risks to an estimated 17,000 U.S. diplomats, military trainers, support personnel and private security contractors.</p>
<p>&quot;The diplomatic mission that remains will be an initiative of unprecedented size and complexity, currectly projected to consist of some 17,000 individuals on 15 different sites, including 3 air hubs, 3 police training centers, 2 consulates, 2 embassy branch offices and 5 Office of Security Cooperation sites,&quot; said the report. &quot;The State Department is scheduled to assume full security responsibilities in a still dangerous and unpredicable environment.&quot;</p>
<p>The report said that the State Department and Pentagon bureacracies are having problems coordinating the transition from the military mission to the diplomatic mission, such as agreeing on how many helicopters should remain in Iraq or be sent to Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Finally, the report warned that the success of the State Department-run mission will require a &quot;cohesive and sustainable funding mechanism&quot; at a time when congressional support &quot;has been undermined by a constrained fiscal environment and war fatigue.&quot;</p>
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<p>&#0160;</p>Jonathan Landay2011-02-01T11:30:24-05:00Mrs Obama to appear on Oprah to talk about military familieshttp://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2011/01/mrs-obama-to-appear-on-oprah-to-talk-about-military-families.html
Michelle Obama will be on today’s Oprah Winfrey Show to talk about military families and the stress they live under as the nation fights two wars. She will be joined by journalists Tom Brokaw and Bob Woodward to introduce some...<p>Michelle Obama will be on today’s <a href="http://www.oprah.com/showinfo/The-Bravest-Families-in-America" target="_self">Oprah Winfrey Show</a> to talk about military families and the stress they live under as the nation fights two wars. She will be joined by journalists Tom Brokaw and Bob Woodward to introduce some courageous military families. They are calling for those who do not have someone in service to support those who do. Mrs. Obama has said military families are one her priorities as the First Lady.</p>
<p>She said she was inspired as she met families during the presidential campaign and vowed to do more for them if her husband became Commander-in-Chief.&#0160;</p>
<p>Talking about military wives, she said: “A lot of these women can use a girl’s night out, a manicure, a pedicure, a break. ...There are things we can do as a nation big and small.”</p>
<p>You can read more about her appearance&#0160;<a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/01/michelle-obama-on-oprah-military-families-need-to-be-reconnected-to-the-broader-community.html" target="_self">here</a>.</p>Nancy Youssef2011-01-27T15:21:06-05:00Petraeus issues state of the Afghan war assessmenthttp://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2011/01/petraeus-issues-state-of-the-afghan-war-assessment.html
Only hours before his commander chief, President Barack Obama, was to deliver his State of the Union address, Army Gen. David Petraeus delivered a state of the war assessment for Afghanistan. In a letter to the 100,000 U.S. forces, Petreaus...<p>Only hours before his commander chief, President Barack Obama, was to deliver his State of the Union address, Army Gen. David Petraeus delivered a state of the war assessment for Afghanistan.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.isaf.nato.int/images/stories/File/COMISAF/LTR%20To%20the%20Troops%20Jan%2025%202011.pdf">a letter </a>to the 100,000 U.S. forces, Petreaus said that over the last year, the U.S.-led counter-insurgency campaign had succeeded in halting &quot;a downward security spiral in much of&quot; Afghanistan and even reversed &quot;it in some areas of great importance.&quot;</p>
<p>As evidence, Petraeus said that despite occassional attacks in Kabul, the Afghan capital and surrounding region &quot;enjoyed impressive security throughout the latter half of 2010.&quot; He called the reduction in insurgent strikes there &quot;particularly noteworthy given that nearly one-fifth of the Afghan population lives in the greater Kabul area and Afghan forces lead in all but one of the (Kabul) province&#39;s districts.&quot;</p>
<p>Petraeus said &quot;hard-won progress&quot; also was made in the southern Taliban strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar provinces, the focus of last year&#39;s surge of an additional 30,000 U.S. forces, and there were&#0160; &quot;advances&quot; in areas of the east, west and north.</p>
<p>&quot;While there clearly is a need for additional work in numerous areas, it is equally clear that ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) and Afghan forces inflicted enormous losses on mid-level Taliban and Haqqani Network leaders throughout the country and took away from of their most important safe havens,&quot; Petraeus wrote. &quot;Now, in fact, the insurgents increasingly are responding to our operations rather than vice-versa, and there numerous reports of unprecedented discord among the members of the Quetta Shura, the Taliban senior leadership body.&quot;</p>
<p>Of course, it was Petraeus who <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/world/asia/28afghan.html">reported</a> in September that senior Taliban leaders had reached out to President Hamid Karzai&#39;s government to discuss holding negotiations on a much-longed for political settlement of the war. The intelocutor, however, turned out to be an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world/asia/23kabul.html">impostor</a> and no apparent progress was made on starting negotiations. That wasn&#39;t mentioned in the general&#39;s letter.</p>
<p>Nor did it say that 2010 saw<a href="http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/documents/UNGA_A65612_S2010630_SituationinAfghanistanandItsImplicationsforInternationalPeaceandSecurity.pdf"> a massive increase in violence</a> and the highest U.S. casualties - <a href="http://icasualties.org/OEF/Index.aspx">at least 499 dead </a>and more than <a href="http://icasualties.org/OEF/USCasualtiesByState.aspx">5,100 wounded</a> - since the 2001 U.S. invasion, nor that many experts believe that the U.S.-led offensives in the south <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/28/105892/aid-groups-in-afghanistan-question.html">prompted insurgents to move</a> to previously unaffected areas of the country.</p>
<p>Civilian casualties also hit an all-time high in 2010, with more than three-quarters blamed on the Taliban and other insurgent groups. The United Nations <a href="http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/documents/UNGA_A65612_S2010630_SituationinAfghanistanandItsImplicationsforInternationalPeaceandSecurity.pdf">charted a 20 percent increase</a> - to at least 6,215 - in civilian casualties for the first 10 months of 2010 compared to the same period a year earlier. And adjacent areas of Pakistan, where U.S. drone attacks rose by <a href="http://www.san-pips.com/index.php">more than 160 percent </a>last year, remained sanctuaries for the Taliban and allied groups.</p>
<p>None of that was in Petraeus&#39; assessment either.</p>
<p>Petreaus said that to capitalize on the progress he outlined, U.S.-led forces will have to expand the &quot;Kabul security bubble,&quot; solidify and extend the &quot;gains in the south and southwest,&quot; connect and expand &quot;areas of improved security in the east and west,&quot; and halt and reverse the insurgency&#39;s &quot;recent advances&quot; in the north and northeast.</p>
<p>He also acknowledged the need for progress on what many experts and U.S. officials and other experts regard as the Achille&#39;s Heels of the counter-insurgency campaign that Petraeus is leading: endemic corruption in Karzai&#39;s government and the <a href="http://www.nato-pa.int/default.asp?SHORTCUT=2261">lack of Afghan officials capable of providing good governance </a>and services to people in areas regained from the insurgents.</p>
<p>&quot;To capitalize on the security gains we achieved in 2010, we will also have to maintain our support for Afghan-led efforts to establish governance that can earn the support of the people,&quot; Petraeus wrote. &quot;Additionally, we will have to expand our efforts to help Afghan officials implement President Karzai&#39;s direction to combat corruption and criminal patronage networks.&quot;</p>
<p>Left unsaid by Petraeus, however, was that <a href="http://www.txcn.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-corrupt_29int.ART.State.Edition1.358c55a.html">Karzai&#39;s refusal to allow prosecutions</a> of family, friends and allies is seen by many U.S. officials and others as a major impediment to the U.S.-backed anti-corruption efforts.</p>
<p>Petraeus warned that this year will see more intense fighting, a prediction that few will dispute.</p>
<p>&quot;In sum, 2010 was a year of significant, hard-fought accomplishments,&quot; he wrote. &quot;The year ahead is likely to be a tough one, too.&quot;</p>
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<p>&#0160;</p>Jonathan Landay2011-01-25T17:06:03-05:00How much did it cost to enforce DADT? On average, $52,800 per service memberhttp://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2011/01/how-much-did-it-cost-to-enforce-dadt-on-average-52800-per-service-member.html
Today’s blog is courtesy of my fellow N&Ser, Jonathan Landay, who kindly pointed me toward an interesting report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office about the costs of implementing don’t ask don’t tell. The report studied separations between fiscal year...<p>Today’s blog is courtesy of my fellow N&amp;Ser, <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/151" target="_self">Jonathan Landay</a>, who kindly pointed me toward an interesting report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office about the costs of implementing don’t ask don’t tell. The report studied separations between fiscal year 2004 and 2009 and found that on average it cost the military $52,800 (in 2009 dollars) for each service member forced to leave under DADT.</p>
<p>During that time, the military spent $193 million, including $185.6 million to recruit and train replacements, to remove 3,664 service members. That is, on average it cost $52,800 per separation. The Navy spent the most, on average $103,000 per removed service member.</p>
<p>As the report explains, “our calculations for the services’ replacement costs amount to about $19.4 million for the Air Force, $39.4 million for the Army, $22.0 million for the Marine Corps, and $104.9 million for the Navy. The Navy recruiting and training cost calculation is larger than the other services’ calculations because according to Navy officials, the Navy recruiting and training cost data contain both fixed and variable costs.”</p>
<p>The report captures other costs of implementing DADT. For example, 34 percent of those forced out under DADT were women even though women make up only 14 percent of the force. In addition, 79 percent of soldiers removed from the Army held critical jobs in the military. And the Navy removed 57 seamen and women who had critical language skills.</p>
<p>It’s the first report I know of that put an economic cost of implementing the law. You can read it <a href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11170.pdf" target="_self">here</a>.</p>Nancy Youssef2011-01-20T16:25:51-05:0030 years later, Iran hostages try to bridge gap between Tehran, Washingtonhttp://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2011/01/30-years-later-iran-hostages-try-to-bridge-gap-between-tehran-washington.html
It was 30 years ago today that American hostages who'd been held in captivity in Iran for 444 days, were released back to the United States and freedom. To mark the anniversary, some of the former hostages have established a...<p>&#0160; <a href="http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/.a/6a00d83451c64169e20148c7d21b2d970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Iran hostages" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451c64169e20148c7d21b2d970c" src="http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/.a/6a00d83451c64169e20148c7d21b2d970c-500wi" title="Iran hostages" /></a></p>
<p>It was 30 years ago today that American hostages who&#39;d been held in captivity in Iran for 444 days, were released back to the United States and freedom.</p>
<p>To mark the anniversary, some of the former hostages have established a foundation, the Iran Study Group (Facebook page <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Iran-Study-Group/#!/pages/The-Iran-Study-Group/195198370495440" target="_self">here</a>) to try to bridge the gap between the United States and Iran. The group said in a statement that it was established &quot;to support diplomacy efforts between the U.S. and Iran through education, public affairs, and policy support,&quot; and &quot;adds a third option to the current official US Government policy of sanctions or military strikes.&quot;</p>
<p>The United States (along with leading European nations and others) remains deeply at odds with Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons program. Talks tomorrow and Saturday in Istanbul, Turkey are unlikely to lead to any breakthroughs.</p>Warren Strobel2011-01-20T15:46:29-05:00Lunch at the State Departmenthttp://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2011/01/lunch-at-the-state-department.html
Well, it's not the State Dinner (that comes later this evening), but there was plenty of star power and fine dining at a lunch at Foggy Bottom for visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao. The lunch got going quite late -...<p>Well, it&#39;s not the State Dinner (that comes later this evening), but there was plenty of star power and fine dining at a lunch at Foggy Bottom for visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao.</p>
<p>The lunch got going quite late - after 2pm - thanks perhaps to that pesky problem with simultaneous translation that turned President Obama&#39;s press conference with Hu into a 1 hour, 8 minute affair.</p>
<p>A tasty lunch, nonetheless. The menu, according to the State Department (no, we weren&#39;t invited):&#0160;</p>
<p>Roasted Butternut Squash Soup, Timbale of Pear and Sunchoke, Sage Toasts, followed by ...&#0160; Fillet of Alaskan Cod, Horseradish Dijon Crème Fraiche, Lemon-Scented Rice and Winter Vegetable Medley, finished off with ... Gilded Chocolate and Plum Delight, Balsamic Ice Cream.</p>
<p>Among the invitees were figure skater Michelle Kwan, author Amy Tan, designer Vera Wang, first CHinese-American NFL player Ed Wang, along with Barbara Streisand and former secretaries of state Colin Powell, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright. After dessert was served, cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed.</p>Warren Strobel2011-01-19T16:52:05-05:00